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Batman Vol 2 37
Supporting Characters: * * * * Villains: * * Other Characters: * * * Harvey Bullock Locations: * :* :* Items: * Vehicles: * | StoryTitle2 = The First Laugh | Synopsis2 = Dr. Mahreen Zaheer leaves a message for her friend Eric Border, explaining her predicament. She allowed herself to be kidnapped by Arkham Asylum inmates who claimed to have met with the Joker, hoping to work on her research. They told her insane stories she can't believe, but for the time being, she's having more trouble avoiding the people infected by the Joker's virus downtown than believing the stories. Her call is interrupted by Morton Wales, who has his own story yet to tell; the story his mother had told him of of the first laugh in Gotham. Gotham had been a center of the manufacturing industry, and the workers were getting sick and angry. The employers began brainstorming ideas to keep the workers from revolt, but came up with nothing. That was when a clown came to town promising to make the people laugh. He delivered on that promise, but nearly sixty people laughed themselves to death that night. The people tried to stop him, but the clown just moved from factory to factory, killing with laughter. Finally, he was tracked down outside the city, and they burned his home down with him inside it. To their surprise, he gleefully came out to greet them, even as he burned to death. As the flames consumed him, he kept performing until he was nothing but cinders. From that point on, a law was passed prohibiting clowns in Gotham. That story had scared Morton as a boy, because people laughed at him whenever they saw him. When he got older, he heard laughter from within a night club and strangled a stand-up comic to death, to prevent any further merriment. Now, things are even worse. Everyone is laughing, just like the Joker had told him. He had claimed that the story Morton's mother had told him was one of the only true tales of him. He came back from the cinders because he wasn't done making Gotham laugh. Morton now believes that perhaps the fact that people had laughed at him helped to make the Joker stronger, and he is terrified of that possibility. But he has to come because he needs proof that his mother was wrong, and the Joker has promised him the opposite. Before Mahreen can promise to get him out, and get backup, the other inmates grab her and drag her into the sewers to continue their journey. Frightened, she calls out in vain for her friend Eric to help her, and the Joker responds, grinning down from the open manhole cover, promising that she'll see him soon enough. | Appearing2 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * Villains: * Other Characters: * * * Locations: * Ace Chemical Processing Plant Items: * Vehicles: * | Notes = * This issue is reprinted in the collection. | Trivia = * In the first story, when Gordon was aiming his gun at the Joker, you can see the registration number "181935" on the gun. 1935 was the same year that Lennie Weinrib was born, who voiced both Commissioner Gordon and Joker on The New Adventures of Batman TV series. | Recommended = | Links = }}